Officials for the state's health insurance exchange say they're
making progress. But a fix to its biggest problem– the one that prevents it
from accurately enrolling people online – is no longer described
as imminent.

View full sizeProgrammers for Oregon's health exchange last week tried to hammer out bugs that have delayed enrollment for the new Cover Oregon website.Nick Budnick/The Oregonian

Under federal health changes kicking in next year, Cover
Oregon is intended to be a "one-stop-shopping" website, letting consumers in
the individual market compare plans, enroll and qualify for tax credits or other
government assistance.

The exchanges are a key aspect of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a marketplace offering new assistance to help the uninsured as well as people who buy their own policies. But many states have seen major problems with their exchanges.

Already, officials had limited Cover Oregon's enrollment function to agents and groups certified to offer assistance. That backup plan, however, tripped on a major hurdle. Cover Oregon programmers continue to grapple with the site's high
error rate in determining eligibility for tax credits or other assistance, according
to spokesman Michael Cox.

The function was supposed to work on Oct. 1, but was
taken offline at the last minute to ensure accuracy. Officials then thought the
problem could be fixed by Oct. 7, and then by Oct. 9 at the earliest. Exchange
officials now say they expect a fix "later this month."

On Wednesday, the exchange sent an e-mail with those words
to insurance agents and its certified "community partner" groups.
In the meantime, agents and others can help people fill out downloadable applications
for tax credits and other programs, the e-mail said.

This new backup plan bypasses the website's faulty IT. The application forms, which request consumer income information, are
submitted to Cover Oregon electronically with the click of a button. State
workers may process them, not the Cover Oregon website.

However, as of Wednesday those applications have not been processed.
And nobody has yet been enrolled in commercial insurance. Next week Cover Oregon will decide how to handle them, Cox said late on Thursday.

There is good news, according to Cox. Cover Oregon plans to
post "within days" details of different commercial policies on the public
website at www.coveroregon.com. The
exchange discovered that the data was faulty and removed it, limiting the site's
usefulness for browsing.

Early next week, the site should become even more useful to
consumers, with a searchable database letting people look up providers to see whether
they are part of a given plan's network. Many carriers have begun limiting
provider networks to cut cost.

Agents, meanwhile, should see fewer error messages and other
improvements, Cox said.

Cover Oregon's Oct. 8 e-mail to agents urged patience: "We're
still in the early days of this major Information Technology undertaking. Our
testing and retooling of the eligibility determination function continues, and
we expect that functionality to be available later this month. That aspect of
the system is crucial for helping many Oregon families access health insurance,
and we don't want a single applicant to miss out on the chance for affordable
coverage. That's why we're dedicated to getting the system right before we get
it out."

The problems hitting many states' insurance exchanges risk
discouraging enrollment and driving up premiums in 2015, according to an Oct. 9
analysis on Jama.com, formerly known as the Journal of the American Medical
Association.

The federal law mandates most people have coverage or pay a fine. But signing up young and healthy people to commercial insurance is
especially key to the success of the federal health changes, because their premiums
will bring down costs for others.

"This may be one of the most important reasons to get the
exchange websites fixed as soon as possible," wrote Larry Levitt, co-executive director
of the Kaiser Initiative on Health Reform and Private Insurance. "The ease of
the enrollment process will be particularly critical for those sitting on the
fence."

Neither the exchanges or the delays will affect people on Medicare as well as most who get coverage through an employer.